New Season Of Pukana Starts Monday

Media RELEASE 26 February
2013Children’s Favourite
Pūkana: New Season Starts Monday, March 4 on Māori
Television, Te Reo and
FOURAward-winning
children’s television show Pūkana starts
its 15th season next week, its longevity a sign of ongoing
relevance in presenting television to children in an
exciting, entertaining manner, while at the same time being
educational.

Pūkana is a dynamic,
colourful, hip and funny mix of up-to-the-minute music,
cheeky send-ups, challenges, giveaways, and Te Reo Māori
practice. There are parodies of popular songs, TV
commercials and personalities, lots of music and youth news,
all presented in a visually energetic style with lots of
camera movement, graphics and animation.

Pūkana screens on Māori Television on
Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 4.30pm and on the Te Reo
channel at 5pm on the same days from March 4. It then plays
the following weekend (starting March 9) on FOUR on
Saturdays and Sundays at 3.30pm, with English
subtitles.

Presenters Tiare Tāwera, Herea Te Hura
Winitana and Krystal-Lee Brown, all fluent Te Reo Māori
speakers and talented singers, actors and reporters are
deeply involved in creating the shows – brainstorming,
researching and writing. Production company Cinco Cine,
based in Auckland and owned by producer Nicole Hoey, has an
enduring policy of training young Māori to write, present
and produce television. The company has turned out many
successful film and television industry
personnel.

Although Pūkana’s primary
audience is aged 8-14, that range is expanding as its
original fans grow up – there is a trend for those aged
12-25 to stay with the show they discovered as youngsters.
Pūkana has discovered over the years that
its audience knows no age limits, as it is loved by Māori
language speakers (and learners) of all ages. And the
re-screening on FOUR with subtitles caters for those who do
not speak the language.

This year sees a change to three
presenters and introduces the newest member of the team,
Krystal-Lee Brown. Of Tainui, Ngāti
Maniapoto, Ngāti Apakura and Ngāti Raukawa descent,
20-year-old Krystal-Lee is currently completing her BA
degree in Māori Development at AUT University.
Pūkana is her first full-time job and her
work on the show makes up her placement for her final paper,
Media Studies.

She is passionate about speaking Te Reo
Māori and is finding that her work on Pūkana is keeping
her up to speed and refining her understanding of the
language. She grew up in Pakuranga and Otahuhu, attended
kōhanga reo then Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Piripono in
Otara, followed by Western Springs College. Active in kapa
haka from an early age, she was in the Piripono team which
won PolyFest, and Western Springs team when it won a year
later. She also participated in Super 12 Kapa Haka and the
main reason behind her move to Western Springs College was
her interest in the drama and dance on offer there. Her
2-year-old son, Te Māpuna-Atahu is already a performer, on
screen in an upcoming music clip for
Pūkana.

Herea Te Hura
Winitana (Ngāti Tuwharetoa, Tūhoe), aged 21, is
going into his third season of Pūkana and looking forward
to bringing more of the traditional Māori culture he
learned as a child to the show. He also feels that he can be
a stepping-stone into the mainstream for children brought up
like he was. Herea’s father established a school, Te
Ahorangi, for passing on his traditional knowledge of Te Ao
Māori, the Māori world, to his whānau. Herea spent his
entire school life there, apart from about two years at a
mainstream school in Turangi before deciding to return to
his father’s school.

He won the Manu Kōrero national
Māori speech competition in 2010, and was spotted by
then-producer of Pūkana, Pānia Papa, who encouraged him to
audition for the show. Working at Pūkana
has been a major learning curve for Herea, as when he
started he had never used a computer and needed to work hard
to improve his ability to communicate in writing, in both
Māori and English, since his education had mostly been in
the oral tradition of his ancestors.

Tiare
Tāwera (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Porou,
Tūhoe) joined Pūkana in 2006, making this his eighth year
with the show. He says his motivation is to make children
smile and to promote Te Reo Māori in an exciting and fun
way. He writes the scripts for the drama and humour segments
as well as song parodies and for the past four years has
been directing a segment. He has a passion for TV and wants
to direct more.

Tiare grew up in Whakatane, attended
kohanga reo there and Te Wharekura o Ruatoki, then, when his
family moved to Auckland he went to Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o
Piripono and Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Mangere, followed by
Papatoetoe Intermediate and then Hato Petera College in
Northcote.

At Hato Petera he was Head Boy and Dux, and as
well as representing the school in many sports, he
participated in Ngā Manu Kōrero, Māori Speech
competition, where he won Auckland and was runner-up
nationally. Through that, he was offered work voicing
animated TV shows in Te Reo at Kiwa Media’s re-versioning
unit. After that he was talent-scouted for
Pūkana by then-producer Mātai
Smith.

Pūkana won the award for Best
Māori Language Programme at the NZ Screen Awards in 2005,
the Qantas Media Award in 2003 and the TV Guide New Zealand
Television Awards best children’s programme award in
1999.

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